Top 10 Job Interview Questions
Question #1: Why don't you tell me about yourself? This is
the classic open-ended interview question. You could start telling
your life's history in two hours or less, but that is not what the
interview wants to hear. Instead, such a question is a test of your
ability to select what is important and communicate it clearly and
quickly. Obviously, the interviewer expects you to relate your
background to the position being considered. There are two basic
approaches to answering this question. One is to provide a brief
response to the question as it is asked, and the other is to request a
clarification of the question before answering it. In both cases, you
would answer the question and then quickly turn your response to focus
on the skills, experience, and training that prepared you for the sort
of job you now want. In other words, you want to relate what you say
about yourself to the job at hand. Talk about your experiences as they
relate to the position. Sample answer #1 If you answered
the question as it was asked, you might say something like this:
"I grew up in the Southwest and have one brother and one sister. My
parents both worked and I was active in sports growing up. I always
did well in school, and by the time I graduated from high school I had
taken a year's worth of business courses. I knew then that I wanted to
work in a business setting and had several part-time office jobs while
still in high school. After high school I worked in a variety of
business settings and learned a great deal about how various business
run. For example, I was given complete responsibility for the daily
operations of a wholesale distribution company that grossed over two
million dollars a year. That was only three years after I graduated
from high school. There I learned to supervise other people and solve
problems under pressure. I also became more interested in the
financial end of running a business and decided, after three years and
three promotions, to seek a position where I could have more
involvement in key strategies and long-term management decisions."
Notice how this applicant provided a few bits of positive personal
history and then quickly turned the interviewer's attention to skills
and experiences that directly related to the job this applicant was
seeking. Sample Answer #2 You could ask interviewers to
help you focus on the information they really want to know with a
response such as this: "There's so much to tell! Would you like me
to emphasize my personal history, the special training and education I
have that prepared me for this sort of position, or the skills and
job-related experiences I have to support my objective?" If you do
this well, most employers will tell you what sorts of things they are
most interested in, and you can then concentrate on giving them what
they want. Honesty is always the best policy, but that old adage
doesn't rule out marketing yourself in the best light during an
interview. Virtually all career counselors encourage job seekers to be
positive about themselves and don't consider this positive spin as
unethical in any way. But they also caution you to avoid taking credit
for something you don't deserve, claiming to have experience you don't
have, or bragging about your performance. You can talk up your
achievements, awards, and promotions without misrepresenting yourself.
A job interview is also not the place to talk about an unhappy
childhood or make negative comments about past employers. Instead,
focus on the positive by saying that your childhood helped you become
self-motivated, resilient, and a hard worker. |
